


Truth and Tootsie Rolls

by Zetal (Rodinia)



Series: Rare Ships Creation Challenge [45]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Dean Has Way More Patience Than These Two Goobers Deserve, Drinking, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 02:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodinia/pseuds/Zetal
Summary: Dean snaps after four years of dealing with his brother and his best friend being idiots.  He turns to the Winchester Family Remedy For Awkwardness and gets them both liquored up to get them to just freakin' TALK to each other.





	Truth and Tootsie Rolls

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SPN Rare Ships Creations Challenge  
> Prompt: Tootsie Roll Shot  
> Partner: @firefly124
> 
> Written for SPN AU Bingo  
> Square: Primary school teacher!Sam
> 
> Written for SPN Fluff Bingo  
> Square: In vino veritas

State testing was going to be the death of Sam. He had absolute confidence in himself as a teacher and his kids were prepared for the tests, but he resented the days lost to practicing for, reviewing for, and taking the tests every year. Today was the last day of testing, school was out tomorrow for a long weekend to celebrate finishing tests, and Sam was going to have some drinks in celebration.

Dean had promised to make him the perfect drink for a teacher of small children. “It’s called a tootsie roll shot. Supposedly it tastes just like a tootsie roll.”

“Supposedly?” Sam stared skeptically at the brown liquid. “You haven’t tasted it?”

“The drink, yes. Never had a tootsie roll.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be right back.” He got up and went to the candy stash refills. He opened a bag of tootsie rolls and came back. “Here. You eat this first. Then I’ll drink up.”

Dean unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth. “Huh. Not bad. It’s pretty close.”

Sam took a sip of the drink. It really did taste like a tootsie roll… “Hey, wait a minute, wasn’t tootsie rolls what you binged on back in 9th grade and it made you barf?”

“Yep.”

“You are such a liar!” Sam glared at Dean, but he had to admit, it was kind of funny. Dean just grinned as he mixed up something green. “Who’s that for?”

“Cas. He should be here…” Dean got cut off by the doorbell. “Now. Dude’s predictable.”

Sam grabbed Dean’s arm as he went to answer. “You invited Cas to Ding Dong The Test Is Dead night? Why would you do that?” Sam set down his drink and quickly ran his now-free hand through his hair. “This is supposed to be a stress-free time where I can relax and just detox from this stupid week! Not a time I have to deal with your friend who in case you forgot hates my guts!”

Dean just rolled his eyes. “He does not hate your guts, Sammy.” He jerked free and went to answer the door, coming back with Castiel Michelson, Dean’s best friend and the bane of Sam’s existence. Sam could deal with Dean’s friends not liking him. He had before. With Benny, it had even been perfectly justified. He could deal with having impossible crushes on Dean’s friends. He had before. Thankfully, the only one who’d ever made it awkward was Gordon, and Dean was very grateful to Sam for exposing what a bag of dicks Gordon was after Gordon had decided that being a gay 3rd grade teacher was an offense worthy of a beatdown.

What Sam couldn’t deal with was having an impossible crush on Dean’s friend who hated him. While he was off at college, he’d heard so much from Dean about Castiel, he’d never had a chance. Then he moved back home to start teaching, and Dean had introduced the two of them. Sam had been reduced to a babbling idiot, and although Castiel had shaken the hand he offered, he’d also called Sam the boy with the anger problem.

In high school, Sam had dealt with a lot of anger for no good reason that anyone could figure out. It built up until, when Sam told his dad about his full-ride scholarship and John had belittled the achievement, the two men ended up in an actual physical fight. Dean broke it up, and Sam walked out that night. John told him not to come back. Sam hadn’t planned on it.

When he got to college, though, he decided to take advantage of having access to student health services. Through counseling, he was able to work through a lot of his anger, and after the first quarter, he called Dean. The reconciliation took, and a couple years after graduation, he reconciled with his dad as well.

So while, yes, Sam was the boy with the anger problem, he didn’t think it was fair of Castiel to judge him based entirely on that. By the time they’d met, he’d long since worked through it and developed strategies to manage it. He’d started avoiding Castiel, only interacting with him when Dean wouldn’t let him excuse himself, and Castiel seemed perfectly happy to go along with that plan. Dean insisted that Castiel didn’t hate Sam, but Sam didn’t see any other way to explain the past four years.

 

Things were awkward and silent for the first couple drinks after Cas showed up. Dean kept trying to get Sam to open up and tell stories about his students, or Cas to tell stories about his work – Castiel was a city cop, and often had a lot of hilarious stories of the drunks he ended up corralling or the teenagers he scared straight. It didn’t work. They would both answer questions as tersely as possible and then clam back up.

“Okay, new rule. Neither of you gets a refill unless you act like educated, intelligent humans with words and language and shit,” Dean finally said after asking Sam about his favorite student – a troublemaker, but a good kid who at least kept up with her work and tried hard on everything – and getting three words. “Neither of you is allowed to leave, either.”

“Am I being detained?” Castiel snarked. “Because as an officer of the law, I have to warn you, false imprisonment is a felony.”

“See? That’s using your words!” Dean rewarded Castiel with a refill. “Now come on, quit being a dick and talk to me and Sam.”

“Sam’s made it very clear that he has no interest in talking to me, Dean.”

“Yeah, that might have something to do with you being a dick to me when I tried,” Sam snapped.

Castiel stared at Sam over his glass. “What do you mean? I was a little confused by you, Dean had always said how smart you were and you seemed to have trouble forming a sentence, but I didn’t think I was a dick about it…”

“The boy with the anger problem? Really? And that sarcastic crack about how glad you were I’d overcome it? How is that not being a dick?”

“That wasn’t sarcasm,” Castiel said. “For nearly four years, I kept asking if I would ever get to meet Dean’s brother that he kept talking about like you were the best person on Earth, and Dean had to keep telling me probably not because of your issues with your father. I was very glad to see you’d overcome that and decided to come home after all. I was very much looking forward to getting to know the person behind Dean’s stories, but then you shut me out. I never understood, and Dean couldn’t clarify.”

Sam threw back the rest of his drink and held it out to Dean for a refill, which Dean provided wordlessly. Four years, he’d thought Castiel hated him… over a misunderstanding? Maybe his anger issues weren’t as worked out as he thought, if he could hold that vicious a grudge for that long. “I thought all you saw was the anger problem, and you didn’t want anything to do with me because of it. I thought you hated me. I was so excited to finally meet the guy who Dean was so full of awesome stories about and glowing endorsements of, and then…”

“FINALLY!” Dean shouted. He jabbed a finger at both of them. “Four. Years. _Four years_ I have been telling you that something had gone screwy somewhere and you needed to talk to each other and figure out what and get it cleared up. You two can be mad at me for inviting Cas to crash your detox night and the false imprisonment all you want, but consider the bullshit you two have put me through because you couldn’t get your heads out of your asses. Now are you finally gonna do something about this ridiculous pining?”

“What… Dean!” Sam covered his face. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to avoid dealing with you two crushing on each other and not admitting it for another four years? It was bad enough when I thought you weren’t coming home, and then just trying to get the two of you in the same room at the same time, but I am not doing this any longer than I have to!”

Castiel cleared his throat. “I can’t speak for you, but he’s not wrong about me having a crush on you…”

“Me either, but you don’t just say that!”

“In his defense, we have put him through more than should be asked of any one person, so I can’t blame him for not wanting to deal with however long it would have taken one of us to work up the courage to speak up about our crush. I can’t blame him for being frustrated.”


End file.
